I can finally mention something about work, or specifically about a friend at work, that I was asked to keep secret. Actually I really could have mentioned it last week, but haven't thought to until now. But when I went on that Birth Week walk with Sara W on May 3, she asked me not to spread it around just yet.

She's resigning from her job here at PCC at the end of this month, and moving back to her home state of Colorado in mid-June. She's already starting to have emotional conversations with people at work about this -- the job posting for her position went out last week, which was why it was at that point this stopped being a secret -- and as I recall, she's lived in Seattle for a couple decades or more. I know I asked her when she moved here from Colorado, and I can't remember. It was either the early nineties or maybe the late eighties. But her family still lives there and kind of needs her right now, and as I explained to her over lunch yesterday, even though I'll miss her very much just as many others will, I totally get it: as I always said about the possibility of moving away from Seattle to be with Shobhit in New York or Los Angeles, it would always have been with the thought that, however long it took, one day I would move back here.

Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily have bothered to bring it up except for this: she mentioned during our very first conversation about this, during my Birth Week, that she wanted me to come visit her. People often say things like that and then it never really happens, but I feel like this absolutely will. I've always been interested in visiting Denver, the city she plans to move to; I've never been to Colorado; and perhaps most notably, she has said multiple times now that Shobhit and I would have a free place to stay, with her. I know that alone will make Shobhit more open to taking a trip there sometime soon-ish.

I have no idea when such a trip might happen. Top priorities this year are the already-booked road trip to Yellowstone National Park next month; visiting Ivan in Vancouver, B.C.; hopefully a trip to Palm Springs to stay with Faith over Thanksgiving; and maybe even a trip with Danielle to stay with her friend Jeanna at her home in the woods north of Spokane. Whether we could also fit a trip to Denver in the middle of that, while technically possible, seems iffy. But if not this year, then next year for sure. I'm not sure Shobhit even remembers who Sara is, but she plans to have a going-away get-together the first weekend of June, and hopefully he'll be able to come to that, so he can be reminded. They've definitely been around each other multiple times before.

I just talked to Sara a little more about it this morning, and got more specific information about the timing of her plans. Her last day at PCC will be May 31, and her move to Denver is scheduled for June 19 -- just three days, as it happens, after Shobhit and I will return from Yellowstone. Of course that's still pretty far from Denver (510 miles, actually about 35 miles more than the distance between Seattle and Missoula, Montana -- it's a long way), but it's still closer to Denver than I'll have ever been before. I don't spend much time in those Rocky Mountain states. In any case, when I mentioned our trip, she promised to have her party while I'm still in town, which was how she chose June 2.

All the best longtime people at PCC keep quitting. It's getting annoying! Pretty soon I'll be the only awesome person left around here.

-- चार हजार तीन सौ और बारह --

Speaking of Sara, I was listening to a podcast this morning on which the hosts posed a rather odd hypothetical. You're to pick a friend -- "Don't pick your best friend. But it has to be someone who is considerably more than acquaintance." You can choose between two things: either allow said friend to get attacked by a bear -- not fatally, but the severity is otherwise completely up to chance: they get away with just a few scratches, or they could wind up losing limbs. Or, to prevent this from happening, you never get to see the sun for the rest of your life, and it always rains wherever you are, no matter where you go. Do you save your friend from the bear attack to avoid the lifetime of rain?

I immediately thought of Ivan. Not my best friend (that disqualifies both Gabriel and Danielle, and even Barbara or Laney), but a pretty significant and important one. Then I thought, well, maybe it's still close to being as unfair to choose him as it would be a best friend -- I am still fond of him in a pretty special and unique way. So then the next person to come to mind was . . . Sara.

I pretty quickly concluded that I would take the lifetime of rain to save the friend from the bear attack of indeterminate severity. Whether it were Sara or Ivan, actually. I mean, it's possible I'm the wrong person to pose this question to; as a general rule, I actually prefer rain to sun anyway. That said, I do prefer there to be a variety of weather throughout the year, and I would miss the sun if I never saw it again. But not enough to consider it more important than the well-being of a friend. As one of the hosts of the podcast noted, getting attacked by a bear, no matter how injured you do or do not get, is objectively terrifying. Making an active choice to allow that to happen to someone is objectively cruel.

-- चार हजार तीन सौ और बारह --

-- चार हजार तीन सौ और बारह --

A sort of odd thing this morning: we had a pre-arranged fire drill. I'm not sure I've ever had one of those before, where we were given multiple warnings of it coming over the course of about two weeks prior. It was scheduled for 10:30 this morning, and I have no idea how on time it actually was. I went down the stairwell on my own at 10:25. If I can avoid having that siren blaring in my ears, why wouldn't I? As I approached the stairwell door Helen said to me from her nearby desk, "Are you cheating!" And I said, "I am!"

I caught up with Mary from IT as I walked to our gathering spot about a block north on Elliott Avenue. She had just bought her sandwich for lunch, saying she also thought she'd get a jump on that instead of waiting for the alarm. I was going to take a picture of our gathered fire alarm crowd to post, like I did in 2016 (one of those photos features the late Gary, former Director of IT, who died last year), but I talked so intently about SIFF and then about podcasts with Mary and then two other people from IT, I just never had a chance to, before we were all heading back to the building again.

A bunch of us smartly broke off and walked in through the garage to the one stairwell you can get into from the ground floor, instead of waiting in line forever for the elevators to get back up here to the 5th floor. I nearly made that mistake last time, although with the last fire drill we did, I wasn't aware of this ground-floor stairwell entrance and actually crossed the street to go through that other building with the skywalk on the third floor of our building (and the parking garage level of that one). As a result I probably took just as long to get back up to our floor as if I'd just waited for an elevator, but this time I beat everyone by, oh I don't know . . . maybe three minutes. Enough time to go refill my tumbler of tea in the kitchen!

-- चार हजार तीन सौ और बारह --

And here I thought I wasn't going to have much to tell you today! Because last night was relatively uneventful -- I rode my bike home, made myself a veggie hot dog for dinner, fifty minutes later rode back down to Pacific Place to see I Feel Pretty. It was certainly silly but still better than the wildly mixed reviews led me to expect; the stupid backlash, which I reference in my review, was clearly misguided and ignorant. That doesn't make it a great movie -- far from it -- but it was fun enough, especially at no extra cost with the use of my MoviePass card. I still have the swipe the fucking thing three times at the self-serve kiosk before it will actually print the ticket for me, which I really need to take note of. There was no line at the regular ticket window so next time I'll stick to that.

I rode back home again, wrote the review, and just before I finished that, Shobhit got home from the networking event he went to in Bellevue. We finally got the new garbage disposal in the mail, and I figured this would be the time to install it -- except we discovered we need "plumber's putty" and don't have any, so, so much for that. Hopefully we'll get it done tonight. We've had to avoid the kitchen sink since Sunday and it's getting old.

-- चार हजार तीन सौ और बारह --

I just ate my lunch out on the patio again. All of 62° this time, but it still felt rather warm, especially when the sun broke through the clouds. I wouldn't mind that localized rain so much about right now. Well, except . . . that it's Bike to Work Month! I joined the PCC team, where I'm third to last in the total distance points for the month so far! Are you proud of me?

I don't get huge bragging rights for my bike commute since mine is the easiest one. My biking distance each way every day is all of two and a half miles. I probably bike to work more than most, but it's easier for that to be the case for me when I live so close.